Fletch Reflected

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “I guess.”

  “Do you have a, you know what I mean, father, Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does any of this seem familiar to you?”

  Jack shook his head. “He’s never been a problem to me. Not enough of a one.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Unusual, I guess. I mean … I don’t know what I mean.”

  “Fathers are confusing.”

  “I guess.”

  “I told you about my father.”

  “Yes.”

  “A cheap, undisciplined weasel of a man who gladly rapes truth for a Mercedes-Benz.”

  “So it was Doctor Radliegh who chose you to be Chet’s wife.”

  “Yes. He brought me here last spring on the pretext of business and told Chet that he, Chet, is to marry me.”

  “How did Chet react to that?”

  “He gets to keep his … whatever. His stableboys.”

  “Shana?” Jack asked. “Are you and Doctor Radliegh lovers?”

  “Yes,” Shana answered.

  “I see. Are you real lovers?”

  “Oh, yes. Chester doesn’t play around.”

  “Oh.”

  “We have been for over a year. Since we found ourselves alone one weekend in Berlin. Neither one of us planned it, expected it. I didn’t. To me, Chester was Big Boss, as formal as a royal reception. It was unimaginable to me he would ever react, relate to me, in any way, except as courteous boss. There was a snowstorm. Some business people didn’t show up for dinner. We found ourselves having dinner together. Laughing. Then throwing snowballs at each other in the street. Then licking the snow off each other’s faces. Then in bed together. Have you met Mrs. Radliegh?”

  “Briefly.”

  “She can’t stand success. She thought she was marrying a college instructor. She found herself some kind of an Empress. It depressed her totally. Some people can’t stand changes. Her misery depressed him totally. She works at it. She made him miserable. Chester could never bring himself to divorcing the poor mess. I understand that. Well, her misery depresses him less now.”

  “Since you two got together.”

  “Since he discovered it’s her nature and there is nothing he can do about it.” Then she said, “Yes. Since we got together.”

  “Does Chet know you and his father are lovers?”

  “No. He thinks I’m marrying him for money. Social position.”

  “Shana, you’ve been frank about everything else. Are you doing this for money, social position?”

  “I really love Chester.” She seemed more comfortable in her chair. “I believe you do.”

  “I love him deeply. I never dreamed of knowing, loving such a man. I never could have conceived such a man existed. Or that such a man would need me, love me.”

  “I’m beginning to get the picture,” Jack said. “Chet in Washington. You here at Vindemia.”

  “Sounds nice to me.”

  “Would you have children by Chester?”

  “We’ve talked about it. I would like to.”

  “Surely then Chet would know you and his father are lovers.”

  Shana smiled. “I expect there would be a proper family resemblance among the children.”

  “Um,” Jack said. “I can’t think what could go wrong in such a marriage.”

  She smiled. “Convenient.”

  “As you said: very convenient.”

  “So,” Shana said. “You know about Chet. And me. And Chester. What a good little investigative reporter you are. What else do you know? Who is threatening Chester?”

  “Now I see the level of your concern.”

  “I think I’m the only one who is concerned about him.”

  “You may be. You and Mrs. Houston.”

  “She’s a good old thing.”

  There was the sound of children in the air.

  “It’s pretty sad,” Jack said. “Mrs. Radliegh must be half crazed with drink and drugs.”

  “Eccentric,” Shana said.

  “Duncan seems to have a taste for drugs of another kind.”

  “Is that what’s wrong with him? I thought he was just a dumb slob.”

  “That, too. He lies. He cheats. He wants $650,000 for a new car.”

  “Let him ride a bike.”

  “Alixis thinks she would like life better without her father interfering.”

  “Without her father, Alixis would be standing on a street corner in white boots and a leather miniskirt.”

  “Beauville—”

  “We’re being invaded,” Shana said.

  A boy about nine years old, naked except for water wings, entered the pool area. Big-eyed, he stared across at them.

  “Chester the Third,” Shana said. “Except I forget his last name. Among them, Amy’s seven children have three different last names.”

  Jack said, “I guess we’re not supposed to be caught in social intercourse, you and I. But none of the other rules around here seem to be unbroken.”

  Shana said, “Rules ought not be broken.”

  One by one four more children tottered into the pool area. Except for water wings they were all naked. Their bodies were entirely tanned. Their bodies all had good shape to them, less baby fat and more muscle than usual for such young children.

  A gaunt woman carrying a two year old entered the pool area. She was followed by a uniformed nanny carrying an infant.

  Jack stood up. “I guess I had better go.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Where are you going?” Jack asked. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Why?”

  “Just curious. I wonder what you do around here, how you spend your time. I wonder what Vindemia means to you.”

  “I’m going to the gym to work out.”

  “So you can mention to Doctor Radliegh that you did?”

  “Because I want to.”

  Jack crossed to the wading pool. The gaunt woman was setting the two year old into the water.

  “I don’t know your name,” he said to the gaunt woman.

  “Amy MacDowell is the short version.”

  “Well, I guess I should leave,” Jack said to her. “Now that you’re all here.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.” She waved good bye to Shana as she left the pool. “We could use an extra pair of eyes. Lifeguard.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Jack returned to his chair in the shade. Happily the children were jumping off the edge of the pool to splash each other. They did not lack for energy.

  Amy carried the infant into the shade. She sat in the chair near Jack where Shana had sat.

  She began to suckle the infant.

  “You didn’t tell me your name,” she said.

  “Jack.”

  She pointed to one of the boys. “His name is Jack. John. Named after his father.”

  Of the seven children, four were boys. “These are all your children?”

  “Yes. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do this really well.”

  “What?”

  “Have children. It took three husbands, so far, but each one of them was handsome, healthy, and bright enough.”

  “You’re not yet thirty?”

  “Twenty nine.”

  “Wow. Seven children while you’re under thirty. Pardon me. I just haven’t met that before.”

  She laughed.

  “And you want more children?” he asked.

  “Yes. Lots.”

  “Good thing you’re rich.”

  “Yes. Isn’t that nice? Has anyone ever told you what a pleasure it is to nurse a baby?”

  “It looks nice.”

  “Envious of little Robert here?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Were you nursed?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Then I suspect you weren’t. I believe nursed babies are much better off.”

  “Your husbands—? Never mind.”

  She laughed.
“Well, in order to have all these children, you see, really I’m better off living here at Vindemia, where there is plenty of help. The men I’ve married think they would be happy living here. But, in time, they discover they’re not a bit happy. Each has found Vindemia much too confining.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “And here they either work for my father, or they don’t work. There isn’t anything else to do. Slowly they get restless, and finally, you know, make the speech of apology, say they can’t take it anymore, they have to go live their own lives. We’re all good friends, I and my ex-husbands, that is. I understand.”

  “You wanted these kids pretty badly, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. Don’t you think having lots of nice children is a good use of wealth?”

  Jack said, “I’ve seen worse uses.”

  Politely, conversationally, Amy then asked Jack personal questions, where he had been born, brought up, schooled. He answered as well as he could.

  She said, “You’re old enough to be married. You never were?”

  “No.”

  “I expect you have a fairly hopeless view of marriage.”

  “Except to have children, maybe …”

  “Don’t you want children?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure,” she said. “It’s the only reason to get married. Just to keep the paperwork straight.”

  Jack said, “Shedding yourself of three husbands must have cost more than a little.”

  “Oh, that,” she said. “I have a way of handling my father.”

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “If he doesn’t do what I want I’ll tell the world he sexually abused me as a child.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Of course not. But he manipulates, tries to control everybody. One has to have a way of manipulating him, don’t you agree? His reputation, that he’s Mister Perfect himself, perfect husband, father of a perfect family, is his soft spot. It’s the only weapon I have, you see.”

  “It’s not very nice.”

  “It works.”

  “Would you actually use it? Say such a thing?”

  “Of course. And he knows it.”

  The oldest boy, about nine years old, was standing between Jack’s knees. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Jack.”

  “Jack, will you come play with us?”

  Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to play with the children in the pool.

  He was sure he wanted no more of the conversation with Amy MacDowell.

  Suddenly the beautiful day, the beautiful flowers, the beautiful pool, the beautiful children seemed to have become splattered by something foul.

  “Go ahead,” Amy said.

  Jack stood up. “If I touch your naked children in the swimming pool will I be accused of sexual child abuse?” His voice sounded stronger to him than he had intended.

  “Of course not.” Amy chuckled. “What would be the point?”

  Jack enjoyed himself more than he thought.

  Cupping his hands under water, one by one the children stepped into his hands so he could lift them out of the water and fling them backward. They landed on their backs, laughing, making lovely splashes.

  The children then began a game of King of the Mountain with him, each trying to climb him, sit on his shoulders, throw the others off. His hair got pulled and his ears tugged.

  The children wriggled around with the energy and humor of monkeys.

  The games continued longer than he expected.

  “Jack?” Amy called him from the side of the pool. “You’d better come out of the water, now. Your back is bleeding.”

  Jack put his own hand on his back and saw it was so.

  “Besides,” Amy said. “The sun will scar your cut.”

  While Jack was putting on his socks and sneakers, Amy said to him, “Don’t tell anybody what I told you. I’d hate to have Alixis use it against my father, too. You know what I mean?”

  17

  “You make sweet sounds come out of that stringed box.”

  Jack was sitting in the woods, his back against a tree, strumming his guitar. His bike was propped against another tree.

  First a boxer dog had bounded into the little clearing in the woods; then a tall, lean older man wearing walking shorts and horned-rimmed glasses came along the path. The man had a long, very straight back.

  “Don’t get up,” Doctor Radliegh said. “And don’t stop playing. I like it. May I sit down, Jack?”

  Jack resettled his back against the tree. “They’re your woods, Doctor Radliegh.”

  “God’s woods. God’s world. We’re just the caretakers.” Radliegh sat cross-legged on a tuft of grass. He chuckled. “If I were God, I’d fire us. Wouldn’t you?”

  “If you were God, would you fire you?” Jack asked.

  “I’ve tried to keep my patch neat.” Radliegh looked around at the planted forest. “Make the most of it. How does one play a guitar?”

  “I’ve been doing it so long …” Jack did a short riff. “Just let your fingers play, I guess.”

  After a lunch of sandwiches and milk in his cottage, Jack had strapped the guitar on his back and gone for a bike ride around Vindemia.

  There were only a few cars outside the business offices on Saturday afternoon. Beauville’s BMW was one.

  There were more than a dozen small airplanes, both jets and propeller driven, parked neatly on the airstrip. As Jack watched, an ancient yellow two-seater wobbled down the sky and made a perfect landing. There seemed to be only one person, the pilot, a man, in it.

  Again, there were only a few cars outside the country club. The tennis courts, pool area, and greens were devoid of people.

  While heading toward the airstrip, a gray Infiniti sedan with tinted windows passed Jack. Another passed him from behind before he went on the road around the country club.

  Jack presumed guests were arriving in the airplanes and then being ferried to the main house for the party that night.

  Beyond the clubhouse, Jack found a timber road heading off to the right. Intersecting with it were walking-riding trails. He jounced his bike along one until he came to a clearing where he thought he’d be alone.

  He had been playing his guitar for only about twenty minutes.

  Another plane went overhead, low.

  Doctor Chester Radliegh looked up through the trees from where he sat cross-legged on the ground. “Lots of guests arriving.” He smiled at Jack. “Good time to take a walk.”

  “You know my name,” Jack said.

  Radliegh nodded. “Jack Faoni.”

  The dog climbed onto Radliegh’s crossed legs and lay down on them. His settled his chin on Radliegh’s knee.

  Radliegh said, “This guy’s name is Arky. He thinks I belong to him.”

  “Arky?”

  “Archimedes.”

  “Of course.”

  “Wanted to name a son that, but Mrs. Radliegh would have none of it.”

  “Name a son after a screw?” Jack smiled.

  “Never mind.” Conversationally, Radliegh said, “A few days ago my elder son, Chet, surprised me. He met me at the stables at dawn. He had saddled two horses. We had a great ride together.”

  Jack waited for the point of this comment.

  Radliegh said no more.

  Jack asked, “Where was Peppy that morning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Searching for a point, Jack asked, “How many days was this before your favorite horse died?”

  “Oh, days,” Radliegh answered. “Three or four days.” He patted the dog’s head. “Things like that don’t happen as often as I expected they would.”

  “Like what?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, just one of the kids joining me for a ride.”

  Thinking about Radliegh, Jack played a short, fast ditty on the guitar.

  Jack was thinking he had never before met a mind like Radliegh’s. The man was a certified genius, but ther
e was something childlike in what Radliegh had just said. Or was it subtle, profound?

  Radliegh was surprised his children did not join him for rides.

  Radliegh was surprised one son, one day, did join him for a ride.

  Therefore … what?

  When Jack had asked Nancy Dunbar why the need for all the security and spying at Vindemia, she had said: “Doctor Radliegh does not like surprises.”

  Perhaps Radliegh’s mind was on a plane so different from the average person’s that everything about humans surprised him.

  Intensely, Radliegh had watched Jack’s fingers play the ditty. “That’s fun,” he said.

  “So how does one invent the perfect mirror?” Jack asked.

  Radliegh shrugged. “Just like your fingers. Let your mind play; pick at things: something develops.” Then he said, “Sometimes.”

  Looking at his fingers on the frets, Jack asked, “What happens to a black hole when it disappears?”

  Radliegh smiled. “You mean, what happens to the information within?”

  “I don’t know what I mean.”

  “It would be fun if it elongated into a line so narrow that its cut length would be a speck so small it might be invisible.”

  “Why would that be fun?” Jack asked.

  “Because it might help define the indefinite we’re prone to think of as the infinite.”

  “Oh.” Jack did not understand, but he heard the readiness to answer, the words. Doctor Radliegh may be surprised by humans, perhaps had inadequate language to deal with them, but he was not surprised black holes appeared to disappear.

  “Do you mind my asking what your mind is playing with, picking at now?” Jack asked.

  “Of course not,” Radliegh said. “Space locomotion.”

  “Space travel?”

  “I guess so. I don’t believe people are questioning sufficiently the basic principles of physics.”